Two religious-affiliated colleges claimed a "major victory" Tuesday after a federal appeals court ordered the Obama administration to verify that it is revising the so-called contraception mandate in ObamaCare.

The decision out of the D.C. Court of Appeals effectively reinstated a challenge that had been dismissed by lower courts. Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College were arguing against the federal health care overhaul rule that requires employers to provide access to contraceptive care.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has represented several plaintiffs challenging the rule, hailed the court decision.

"The D.C. Circuit has now made it clear that government promises and press conferences are not enough to protect religious freedom," Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund, said in a statement. "The court is not going to let the government slide by on non-binding promises to fix the problem down the road"...

A federal appeals court issued an injunction on Wednesday that temporarily blocks President Barack Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services from implementing Obamacare’s contraception mandate.

The mandate requires employers to provide their employees with health care plans that include coverage for contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs.

Missouri business owner Frank O’Brien, who employs 87 people at O’Brien Industrial Holdings, alleged in the lawsuit that led to the injunction that the mandate unconstitutionally infringes on his religious beliefs...

Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a privately held retail chain with more than 500 arts and crafts stores in 41 states, filed a lawsuit today against the Obama administration over its HHS mandate.

The company says it would face $1.3 million in fines on a daily basis starting in January if it fails to comply with the mandate, which requires religious employers to pay for or refer women for abortion-cause drugs that violate their conscience or religious beliefs.

The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma and the business says it is opposing the Health and Human Services “preventive services” mandate, which it says forces the Christian-owned-and-operated business to provide, without co-pay, the “morning after pill” and “week after pill” in their health insurance plan, or face crippling fines up to 1.3 million dollars per day.

“By being required to make a choice between sacrificing our faith or paying millions of dollars in fines, we essentially mu

History speaks above the prattle of secular humanism. This was the message delivered by the Kentucky supreme Court, who has declined to hear a case attacking the Kentucky Homeland Security Act for its reference to dependence on “Almighty God” as vital to the security of the Commonwealth. The decision was almost entirely overlooked by the news media, except local (expectedly biased) news reports from the Courier-Journal and Lexington Herald. Their reports quoted the disappointment of the American atheists, and erroneously called the Homeland Security Act “mere lip service to a commonly held belief in God.”

In the court case of American Atheists vs. the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Col. Ron Ray and First Principles Press filed a brief with the Kentucky Court of Appeals representing 35 Kentucky Senators and 96 State Representatives, defending the historic and Constitutional reference to God.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco refused Tuesday to rehear a legal challenge to the state's same-sex marriage ban, sending the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals made the decision, which was based on whether a majority of its active judges had agreed or refused to reconsider a ruling in February in which two of its member judges declared the ban unconstitutional.

A federal judge approved a land-swap settlement of a lawsuit over a remote site in the Mojave National Preserve where war memorial crosses have been erected for decades.

The settlement announced Tuesday calls for the site at Sunrise Rock to be turned over to a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Barstow in exchange for five acres of donated land.

The National Park Service said it hopes to complete the swap by year's end, allowing the VFW to once more erect a cross on the site. The most recent permanent cross was stolen and a replacement was removed to comply with a court injunction...

A Christian attorney says a California judge "did the wrong thing" in ruling against the Defense of Marriage Act in a case involving a lesbian federal employee.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of San Francisco has ruled that the federal government cannot deny healthcare benefits to the "wife" of Karen Golinski, a staff lawyer for the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge White says the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional and discriminates against same-sex couples by not recognizing their unions. Assistant Attorney General Tony West argued for Golinski in the San Francisco court.

Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver agrees with Americans for Truth About Homosexuality's Peter LaBarbera that the arguments for the homosexual and against the federal traditional marriage law further enforces the administration's desire for support from the homosexual lobby...

Lincoln, Neb. – Seven states filed a lawsuit Thursday to block the federal government's requirement that religious organizations offer health insurance coverage that includes free access to contraception for women.

The attorney generals of Texas, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Carolina jointly filed the lawsuit in a Nebraska US District Court.

Two private citizens, two religious non-profit organizations and a Catholic school also joined the lawsuit against the contraception mandate, which is part of President Barack Obama's sweeping health care law.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to declare the law unconstitutional and enjoin the government from enforcing the requirement...

SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals court on Tuesday declared California's same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional, putting the bitterly contested, voter-approved law on track for likely consideration by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that a lower court judge correctly interpreted the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court precedents when he declared in 2010 that Proposition 8 was a violation of the civil rights of gays and lesbians.

It was unclear when gay marriages might resume in California. Lawyers for Proposition 8 sponsors and for the two couples who successfully sued to overturn the ban have repeatedly said they would consider appealing to a larger panel of the court and then the U.S. Supreme Court if they did not receive a favorable ruling from the 9th Circuit.